Slipping Away

The thing about moms is- there aren’t always a lot of pictures of them. They’re usually the one taking the pictures.  It was no different with my mom.  Lots of things were different about my mom- but I know she did love me- very much.

And she loved my sister and my brother.

But perhaps even more, she loved our father.

So, just a month and a day short of four years after his death, she joined him. 

While we had almost a year of saying goodbye to Dad, Mom’s final take-off seemed to collapse into a one, short week.  In a way, we’ve been saying goodbye to her for years, maybe even for all of our lives.  For some people the world is just too much- too loud, too demanding, too busy to nurture a shy, fragile, brilliant girl.

When Dad launched I knew he was happy to be on his way to a new adventure. But with Mom, I’m not so sure.  There weren’t as many signs.  She was gone before we knew it- struggling and laboring for days and then, with a small, quick, exhalation, gone.

Happy Birthday, Dad

September 27, 2009

 

We go on without you…    

We remember the good times….

The wise and wonderful things you taught us…

But it isn’t the same. 

    We miss you swell, Dad.

Weepy, Raucous, Epiphanies of Grief

 

On Saturday it will be two years since my Dad, the Wisest Man in the Universe, left.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know it all really started around the time we learned he was dying and for the first year, I chronicled our long goodbye.

Really, it was such a blast.  It was one of the best ever times of my life.  In dying, Dad taught me more about living and life than I could ever hope to learn on my own without him.

 

God, I miss him.

If you've been reading my posts for very long, you also know how I struggled with losing him, looking for signs that he was still present, somewhere close at hand, perhaps on the other side of an invisible curtain, just not so far away.

There were a few dreams.  Powerful, intense visits in which he talked about Heaven or once, just hugged me so tight I felt it for days.

Then there were the pennies, mysterious pennies that appeared from nowhere and always when I needed him the most.  Signs, I felt certain, that he was pitching them from behind an invisible chink in Heaven's fence.

It was sometimes just enough to keep me from sinking.

But as this two year mark steadily creeps closer, I have felt nothing but his absence.

I am like Jodi Foster surrounded by a sea of giant listening satellites, listening to the vast, wooshing silence of outer space and hoping for a discernable signal.

The crushing grief is gone for the most part.  I have settled in for the steady, plodding marathon that is life without my mentor and best, true friend.

I know he's gone but I can carry him with me, always.

Still it would've been nice, would be nice, to reach out and hug him.

On one of those bittersweet, joyous days in which I hadn't been swamped with loss and was, in fact, having a blast with my boys, I walked into the kitchen and caught them, red-handed, hiding pennies for me to find.

I was devastated.  All this time.  All those pennies.  It had been my boys, tricking me and laughing behind my gullible back?

I couldn't let them see how awful I felt.

A few days later an epiphany, probably epiphany number 112 since Dad died, hit me.

Although they swore it was the first and only time they'd hidden pennies for me to find, I truly doubt this.  But I realized it was not done out of cruelty. My boys have always been too loving to hurt me like that.  They were doing something their grandfather would've understood completely- the good and the bad.  It was a sort of reverse-generation Santa Claus.

I remembered all their pats on the back and the awkward hugs they'd given me when I'd dissolved into sudden tears at some silly commercial that reminded me of Dad.

I realized, again, my father lives on in my boys.  His goodness, his kindness, his wicked sense of humor- it is in all of us and in that way, Dad is never truly gone.

The last time I saw my sister we were sitting at the dinner table when she suddenly gasped.  Her eyes filled with tears and she reached across the table to touch my fingers.  "You have Dad's hands," she breathed. 

She stared at them for a long moment then smiled.  "That much be such a comfort, to look down and see his hands, always there."

 

I can't look at them now without remembering him.

And on the 27th, I won't visit his grave to pay my respects. I don't have to seek him out and honor a piece of granite.  I am my father's monument.  Each of us who loved, love, him and try to carry some little piece of his wisdom and mercy forward, we are the monuments to his life on this earth.  It's up to us to find him within us and carry his love forward into our own juicy lives.

The Best Dandelion in the Graveyard

I think when Dad died, a part of me went right along with him.

He wouldn't want that. And now- finally, I don't want it either.

The greatest monument to the life of a loved one is not some marble edifice erected atop a grave. It's not how long we mourn or how deeply we grieve. We are the testament. Our tribute is in how we live our lives without them.

My mistake, thus far, has been in thinking I have to use all the tools Dad gave me every day, perfectly, just as he would have used them. But today I realized something- if I did that, I'd be living his life and not my own. Dad would really not like that. He was all about the importance of living your own life.

Besides, I would only be a cheap imitation of the greatest dad in the Universe.

I've tried to be a carbon copy of him and failed miserably every single day for the past 18 months. I've even tried to write like I imagine he'd want me to write- and it just hasn't worked.

I'm not a very good graveyard angel. That's okay. Maybe my job is to be the dandelion that grows beside the marble monument, stretching its roots deep and lifting its face toward the sun.

Having a Lovely Time, Dad- Wish You Were Here!

It's almost time for Christmas vacation. I won't be back at the nursing home for 3 weeks. "What will we do if there's a...well, um..." The social worker's voice trails off and she give me an apologetic smile.

"Emergency?" I say, supplying the word she doesn't want to use.

"Well, yes," she says, sighing. "Three weeks is a long time."

I smile at her. "If something goes wrong around here, call me at home and tell me to get up off the couch and get down here."

I tell her this because this one home tries very hard to do their best for their residents and because of this, I don't mind if they call me. They won't be trying to cover their liable tails after some neglectful incident- they'll be trying to avert a crisis.

I tell her how hard I know they are working- how I see it every time I visit and it makes me feel good. And then I confess I can't go back to the home we both left because it is too hard. "I feel so guilty about it," I say.

Jan shakes her head. "You can't, you can't, you can't" she murmurs over and over, until I realize she is also telling herself.

I stand up, ready to leave but I don't go because I know there's one more thing I need to tell her. "I know this Christmas will be hard," I begin. "At best, strange, without your dad."

She nods. Her dad has been gone for 7 months and mine a year and almost 3 months. I know how much she loved her dad.

"We took flowers to the gravesite yesterday," she begins but breaks off and shakes her head.

"But he's not there, is he?" I whisper.

Tears fill her eyes. "I know he's in a better place," she tries. "But I feel mad, too. So much has happened and keeps right on happening. I want to say, 'Why'd you leave me to deal with this?' But I know it's not his fault."

She begins to cry. "It's the weirdest things. Like he had an old Plymouth Volare. Thirty years old with 54,000 original miles on it. He did all the work on that thing. Then when he got sick, he couldn't work on it anymore but he wouldn't sell it." She pauses a moment, gathering the strength to talk. "We sold it last month. We had to. You can't hang on to everything and Mama needed the money. Anyway, the man came by the other day and that Volare looked so good. He said he'd put 24-hundred dollars into it and it looked perfect. But things like that...they just tear me up."

I know. I tell her about cooking with the Eldest Unnamed One, just like I used to do with Dad. "Even though it's neat to see the generations continue and see my Dad in my boy, it still hurts because I miss my dad and it's not the same."

I am dangerously close to losing it myself but I "hold the tail," so I can stick with her. But later when I walk to the car, it is all I can think about, all I can feel.

I miss my dad but I live on, trying to follow the things he taught me. Doing it, in part for him because that is what he would want, I think. He would want me to pass the essence of who we are and what we are about on down from one generation to the next. He would want me to let the love he gave me flow on to my sons and their children and the host of others who will follow us.

But it just isn't the same as having him here.

Don't get me wrong- I'm having an exceptionally good time with my boys and my friends, but I'm just aware of how much he would enjoy all of this and how much I would like one of his hugs.

Pickup Trucks and Pennies From Heaven

We miss Dad.

My brother and I are standing outside in the dark beside our trucks, talking in low voices about our dreams of Dad.

"Yeah," my brother says. "The day I bought my banjo, that night, I dreamed Dad and Papa Lee were laughing and dancing. Dad was doing that thing he used to do, you know how he'd hunch his shoulders up and go in those circles?"

"Like Bill Cosby?"

"Yeah, I always thought he danced just like Bill Cosby."

We love Bill Cosby,too.

"I think he and Papa Lee were happy I got the banjo," my brother says.

That would be like them, I think. Dad's father, Papa Lee, had a banjo, used to play in Vaudeville theaters before my father was born and then continued to entertain his family by playing the ukulele. I could see him dancing with happiness that the musical gene has continued on through the generations.

I tell my brother the dream I had where Dad comes and hugs me. But I realize in the moment that he takes me into his arms, he's dead. This isn't real.

I say this and my brother begins to cry. I look at him and dissolve myself. We stand between our two pickup trucks, crying, our children clustered around us, awkwardly patting our backs.

"I'm sorry," I tell my son later. "I didn't mean to do that."

"That's all right," he says, hugging me. "It was bound to happen. Every time you get together with your brother or your sister, you guys wind up crying."

Yeah, true that.

It's bedtime. Tomorrow is a new day, I think. No more tears for the rest of the trip, I promise myself...but I feel like I could cry forever.

I reach into my bag for pajamas. There is a penny resting on top of the bag. Another penny from Heaven.

One Week Without the Unnamed Ones- Day 5

The truth is, I get as much done when the Unnamed Ones are home as I do when they're away...The only difference is, I just plain miss my boys...and now, it's worse because I even miss the Witch!

But...I did finish cleaning out and putting back the office closet and its contents.

And I wrote about 11 pages. I'm trying a new way of writing for awhile. It's called the "Don't plot it- just put the people on the page and see what happens next."

Darlene, my Flea Sister, was with me up in D.C when the approach came to me. Of course, as you may remember, I was sick and stuck in amongst 3500 therapists at a psychotherapy conference. I think the therapists helped. For one thing, if one of the presenters hadn't bored the living poop out of me, I wouldn't have started writing- inventing 2 characters to entertain me as I went along.

Secondly, I think the influence of 3500 therapists shows very clearly in this new writing technique. I put the characters on the page and try to figure them out as I type along after them.

I know...get to the good stuff, Nance, you're boring us....




All right. I went to pick up my massive quantity of jelly beans, all tucked snug in their little beribboned jelly jars. Bessie was nowhere in sight but the rest of the crew was gathered in the activity room, waiting for the afternoon's storytelling session.

As near as I could tell, they all appeared to be sleeping, or at best in a post lunch stupor.

Milly, a white-haired lady with blood-thinner bruises all over her arms and a lap rug covering her legs rolled up and squinted up at me through her glasses.

Most days she smiles and says "There you are, honey! I've been looking everywhere for you!" But not today. Today Milly rolls up, raises one eyebrow and says acerbically, "Well, it's about time! I haven't seen you in forever!"

"Well, Milly," I said, "It was only yesterday, remember?"

Milly ignores this in order to get right down to what's on her mind.

"Are you gonna clip my toenails, or what?" she demands.

Now, usually I'll go along with whatever they throw at me but I have this thing about feet- I don't let people play with mine and in return, I won't play with theirs! So before I could stop myself, I'd said, "Heck no, I won't clip your toenails. I love you, Milly, but you'd better save that for the podiatrist."

"Humph!" Milly snorts, like "what good are you then, girl?!"

The activity assistant is sitting in her office, reading the paper, probably stalling story hour until she feels inspired.

"She knows you aren't the podiatrist," she says, never looking up from her paper.

But Milly's had enough of our foolishness. She starts rolling out of the room, headed down the hallway.

"Milly!" the assistant calls. "Milly, where you goin'?"

"I'll be back!" Milly calls over her shoulder...but the assistant knows better.

"Aw, she's goin' back to her room and gonna climb up in that easy chair of hers," she grouses. "She loves her some chair!"

But I know the real truth. I've let Milly down. Not only was I not the podiatrist, I didn't even have the sense to help her save face by pretending to be the podiatrist.

I walk back out to the car, put down the top and drive away with my jelly beans. I know Milly will have forgotten all about my betrayal by the next time she sees me, but I won't.

Getting old, losing bits and pieces of your memory and your life, is terribly hard. It's full of pain and misery and the grief of losing your future and your past.

Compared to that, becoming a podiatrist is the very least I can do.

Another Day, Another Reason Why The Christmas Tree's Still Up

Reason # 48023 for not taking down the Christmas decorations:

I had today organized, really I did. It included taking down and putting away all the decorations, reorganizing the house, grocery shopping, taking Woo-dah (aka Lindy- the puppy who just had a tumor removed from her foot) to the vet for a new bandage and check, going to the bank AND meeting Marti back at the house by noon to REINVENT our ENTIRE lives.

Okay, so Woo-dah and I set out for the vet's, passed the bank and saw- to my chagrin as it was part of my perfectly organized, never go out of my way or retrace my steps plan- it was surrounded by cops and blue lights. It had just been robbed.

Nix the bank for the time being.

The vet was jammed up with someone's torn ACL, so Woo had to stay and I had to return to get her at 3.

Okay, cool. I'm not too off-balance. So, I drive across the street to the grocery store and WHAM! They are having triple coupon weekend. This takes a 6 item shopping list and effectively turns it into a 2 hour extravaganza of careful coupon shopping.

But still I beat Marti back to the house by five minutes and managed to reorganize two shelves of the pantry before we REORGANIZED our ENTIRE lives.

This took a little bit of time.

Somehow it was 3:05 before we ever looked up at the clock and I was late for the vet.

The vet did not go well at all. Somehow there was a glitch with the scheduling and all the patients arrived at once- including an obnoxiously hyperactive 3 year old, his 2 puppies and his biker mama.

It was SRO in the waiting room and at one point a guy comes in and drops off his baby- no lie! He just plops the carrier down in between a group of cat carriers, looks at the kitties' owner and says, "You don't mind, do you? She won't be any trouble!" And then he just leaves!

The entire waiting room went to the window to watch him. Turns out he was trying to juggle a couple of kids and dogs and the baby was just overload. He did return but the little old ladies talked about him for a long time...until someone brought in a 40 lb. cat and that distracted them onto feline obesity and a discussion of the biggest cat they had ever personally seen before this one arrived to take the crown.

I spent most of my time trying to once again figure out how to program my new cell phone and was once again unsuccessful. (Directions are for losers or cheaters.)

And then there was no putting off the inevitable. The pathology report was back and Woo-dah has cancer. The vet painted a pretty grim picture but wants to talk to an oncologist first. The rest of the afternoon was spent googling "Canine Melanoma, treatment, staging and prognosis."

The only bright spot on Woo-dah's horizon is the research and trials being done with gene therapy. Fortunately we are close to one of the research hubs- NC State...But you know, in the midst of all my researching, I couldn't help feeling a bit like I was reliving Dad's diagnosis and my initial reaction to it. I did the same thing, I researched. I pleaded and begged and fought and kicked and it didn't do one bit of good. He still died.

This is the year of creating my reality, of seeing things in a more positive light. To that end, I will not panic until I hear what the oncologist says.

I think I am on grief overload because I just feel numb. In the basement of my soul there is crying and pain and anger that yet again someone I love may be taken away but for now, it is too much and not at all immediate- so I ignore it.

There isn't time for grieving- not with doggie dinners to prepare and a boy to drive across town and a broken-hearted friend to console. There isn't time to feel sorry for myself when Woo-dah herself is dancing across the kitchen floor, daring the younger, bigger dogs to attempt to get between her and her food dish.

And there is most especially not time for taking down Christmas and sorting through bills.